A new version of the Christmas story with a dead Santa definitely catches your attention. The fact that the propaganda is not vaccine-related raises some interesting, if perplexing, questions.

The group that produces these videos, The John Snow Project, seems to be based in Australia but has worldwide connections. While I have had trouble identifying exactly who is behind the group–they are vague, and Google is no help–I have found a few names, and they include doctors in the US and Canada. They claim to be “self-funded,” although the “selves” involved remain unnamed.

There definitely is some money backing this group.

There is a John Snow Institute, but given that John Snow is one of the most famous public health figures (he identified the source of a cholera epidemic and helped short-circuit it, at least temporarily), I have no solid reason to believe that the one is connected to the other.

Perusing the website of the John Snow Project is something of a treat. It gives you insight into the paranoid mind of the COVID fanatic, or at the very least, the messaging of some shady group who want you to be scared. I honestly can’t tell if these people believe their ridiculous propaganda or if they are trying to sell us N95 masks.

Is there really THAT much money in making masks? I have no idea. Billions, I suppose, and that is a market worth protecting.

Anybody who caught a cold, flu, or COVID-19 knows that it is no fun, so in principle, the idea of reducing the risk of infection makes sense. It’s not a tough sell to convince people that getting sick is unpleasant and occasionally dangerous.

I certainly don’t like it.

But come on, man (as Joe Biden would say). The problem isn’t the first part of the equation; it’s the second. Aside from washing your hands, avoiding obviously sick people, and staying home when you are ill, the costs of avoiding exposure to common pathogens, including COVID-19, are way too high to justify reordering your life.

What is striking about these videos, and one of the reasons I thought it was worth pointing them out, is how they seem to avoid dramatic promises related to vaccines. In fact, they downplay their effectiveness. Vaccines are not the answer, but masks are.

Who knew? Certainly not Cochrane.

It isn’t just masks–only ventilators, those close-fitting especially uncomfortable and expensive masks.

This suggests that pharmaceutical companies are not behind the push, so we can rule out that conspiracy theory.

Do mask makers have enough money and clout to make such a push and recruit doctors to help them? I have no idea.

Is there a Big Mask I didn’t know about?

In any case, it is deeply weird. Either there is a cultish group of people who have banded together to push mask mania at great expense, or there is a large-scale push for some reason to get people to wear not just masks but high-quality respirators.

Maybe Taylor Lorenz has found a big donor to funnel money to Australian hypochondriacs?

Seriously, you could make this sort of commercial for almost any respiratory virus that has ever existed because almost any respiratory virus, especially when it is novel, will do tremendous damage to some fraction of the population. Even common viruses and bacteria can, in some cases, cause sepsis and kill people.

Somebody very close to me died from sepsis that developed from a bad case of Strep throat, a bacterial infection spread by droplets in the air. It can happen, and it doesn’t take COVID or SARS of any variety to kill you off if God is calling you home.

Fighting microorganisms is what our immune systems are designed to do, and that ability evolved because dangerous bugs are designed to hijack our bodies and live off of them. Such is life.

If you actually want to experience a full life, you do your best to do basic, easy things to reduce the risk and then move on and live.

And if you take people who think killing off Santa Claus is a good way to propagandize seriously, chances are your life will be severely constrained.